A manufacturer who wanted laborers confronted him with a heavy crate and instructed him to load it on to a truck; he could scarcely shift it.
Dusk fell. He no longer had a sou, and it was the last night that the rules permitted him to stay at the shelter. At all costs, however, it would be necessary for him, like the wretch of two days before, to find food and shelter. Was he going to sleep on benches? Take refuge under bridges or go to earth in quarries? To what infamous promiscuity was he about to be subjected? The old mendicant had told the truth; one could no longer find work at his age. And the crapulous logic of the former ministerial officer returned obstinately to his mind; there were now only two alternatives: to take or to receive; beggar or thief.
A mortal chill traversed his heart; the two alternatives were as repugnant as one another—but nor did he want to die of starvation.
He dragged himself as best he could to the shelter whose doors would be closed to him the following day, exhausted by fatigue, and ended up falling into a sleep full of bad dreams, the slumber that is no longer repose.
He woke up near to collapse. The vegetarian regime to which he had been subjected since the day of his arrest was not made to support privations, but the vague nourishment, truly too summary, that he had taken in the last three days had not even served to stave off his hunger. It required all his energy to set forth again.
The first thing that struck his gaze was a placard attached to the facing wall:
Men wanted who know Paris well for easy and rewarding work, very urgent.
The notice had surely been put there intentionally. He armed himself with all his courage and went to the indicated address, in the vicinity of the Museum.
The grocer who received him insisted on offering him a glass of white wine; he had the habit of killing the worm when he got up, and business only went well after clinking glasses. Although certain of the harmful effect, he dared not offend the man who could get him out of trouble with a refusal. The merchant lisped in an irritating fashion and had the air of an utter simpleton. He began by tell him about his debuts and explaining all the inconveniences and frustrations of the grocery business in detail. After interminable digressions, he finally got to the point.
“This is it,” he said. “I’ve decided to get into wholesaling, in a small way. I have, therefore, procured oils, wines, soaps and petroleum products at low cost; I can offer exceptional prices to clients; it’s a matter of placing my products with solvent people in any fashion you please. My competitors take accredited brokers or travelers; me, I reason as follows: the more placers I have, the more merchandise I’ll sell, that’ s clear as day, so I put up notices in places frequented by people without work; I’ll be delighted to come to their aid. Occupy yourself with selling my stock, then, and I’ll give you a ten per cent commission, payable in cash as soon as the thirty-day invoices are settled.
“And in the meantime?” asked the disappointed work-seeker.
“In the meantime what?” said the astonished grocer.
“How do those in search of an immediate salary eat?” He was gripped by anger. “Are you stupid? You put up a notice like yours opposite a night-shelter; the people who come out, it can be assumed, don’t have the time to wait a month for the price of their work.”
He went out, irritated by the imbecility of the individual who had wasted his increasingly precious time, excited by the white wine, which had gone to his head. The heat was oppressive; noon was chiming on the clocks. He went through the Jardin des Plantes, almost deserted at that hour. His head heavy and his eyes leaden, he sat down on a bench to rest briefly...
The burning rays of the sun brought him round. Had he gone to sleep? Had he lost consciousness? He hastened to apply compresses of cold water to his aching head, and started walking again. Hunger was beginning to torture him, thousands of black dots were dancing before his eyes; he felt himself vacillating; he made an energetic effort to collect himself.
“Come on,” he sighed. “Who sleeps dines. I’ve dined.”
A newspaper thrown from the top deck of an omnibus fell sat his feet. He picked it up feverishly and turned to page four. There were many requests for employment and few offers. The majority came from agencies; he was already informed on their account. Other were seeking boys between twelve and fifteen to undertake courses or apprenticeships for a rapidly-remunerated métier, or financial backers for exceptionally advantageous businesses.
A dentist was in search of an assistant.
It was in the Temple district. Hope restored his strength. He ran there.
Once, in guard-rooms, he had devoted himself furiously to the extraction of molars. If he did not know how to label a bottle with the dexterity and elegance demanded by a Parisian pharmacist, he could show the dentist that he was capable of extracting a tooth.
The operator examined him with a singular suspicion. He had ruminated his speech on the way, and, with the aid of the white wine, delivered it with an admirable fluency. The clamp no longer had any secrets for him and the forceps, in his hands, accomplished veritable miracles. There was not a caried tooth that could resist him, no ungraspable stump that he could not uproot.
The dentist whistled while he listened to him.
“I’ll do without your services,” he replied. “Apply elsewhere.”
“But Monsieur, if you need someone, what I’ve told you is true; I’m not boasting. As for salary, I’m not demanding; give me what you wish. Look, just take me on trial for a few days—food and lodging; you’ll see then what I’m worth and pay me what you please.”
Negative shakes of the head greeted all these propositions.
The unhappy petitioner, with desperate persistence, swore again to the great gods that he was telling the truth.
“It’s possible, even probable,” the dentist ended up declaring, “and that’s why I don’t want you at any price, even if you were to offer me money. Do you imagine that I haven’t guessed, at the first glance, what you’re up to? But your attire, your appearance, your smooth talk, your disinterested proposals give you away sufficiently. You’re some fairground dentist or provincial charlatan. You want to work with me to perfect your skills and then set yourself up in Paris. Well, it’s not in my school that you’ll learn the chic of the capital. Go away, decamp, my good man. Find another mug—I’m not going to make a rod for my own back.”
Decidedly, fate was determined to doom him. He had a moment of terrible discouragement. Then, shaking off his stupor, he went back to the great boulevards like a wolf emerging from the woods, with the vague and foolish hope that someone might recognize him, guess who he was, come to his aid. Would a man like him be left any longer to die of hunger? A discreet hand would reach out, aid would fall from the sky.
The double current of the busy crowd occupied the entire width of the sidewalk; passers-by were arguing and gesticulating, friends were bumping into one another; foreigners and provincials were mingling the awkwardness of their gait; prostitutes in search of dinner or bourgeois coquettes, their meager purchases in hand, were variegating it with garish colors. He was marching automatically, like a specter, his feet no longer feeling the ground, his eyes staring, his complexion livid. At every step personalities from all walks of life passed him, and people who had once saluted him, bowing to the asphalt, did not even glance at him.
Had he changed to that extent, then? Or is it too difficult to recognize those one no longer expected to encounter?
Here comes Dr. R***, his former rival, his gestures broad, his head high, his gaze assured, the rosette in his buttonhole. The boulevard seems to belong to him; he is saluted by the crowd as he passes, they make way for him; heads turn, fingers point him out. Once, he had been treated thus, while now...
Instinctively, the wretch feels himself; he feels flat, effaced, ignored, annihilated. He no longer counts. He has the sensation, now quite clear and definite, that he is part of the crowd, part of the people. He is englobed, confounded, lost in a mass; he is
the anonymous being one looks at without seeing, that one jostles without apologizing, the vague unit that moves in the midst of number; he is so alone, so astray, that he finds himself in the middle of the vastest desert.
He listened to the cries of newsvendors without hearing them, and without even trying, as he had on the previous days, to read the day’s events in the headlines of newspaper he was unable to buy. What did political events matter to him? The events that would have impassioned him only a few months before left him plunged in the profoundest indifference. The intrigues of the Chambres, upheavals in the ministry, adventures in princely alcoves, financial scandals, frontier conflicts! What can all that mean to those who are in immediate need of something to eat? Oh, if he could see a band of starvelings passing by who were talking about breaking into a food store…! The disorders of the street would perhaps not appear to him as reprehensible as they once did.
Tragic visions passed before his eyes, of roads stained with blood, muted and horse rumors rising from the populace; the anemia sounding in his ears had the lugubrious chimes of a tocsin.
Weakly, he leaned against a column of posters. Facing him, the terrace of a political café was packed with customers. Why were all those people looking at him without seeing him, seemingly without wanting to recognize him? The ugliness of the demonstrative gestures and the vulgarity of the grimacing faces recalled him to reality. Scales fell from his eyes; it was no longer the place of old made for cordial encounters and witty conversation; it was a vile gehenna where gazes shone with cupidity or hatred, where consciences were sold, where conspiracies were woven, where cabals were organized, where reticence, treason and cowardice mingled with ophidian undulations of smoke escaped from bloody or discolored lips.
Irritated by the appetizing odor of absinthe, he made an effort, crossed the boulevard and found himself facing Potel et Chabot. The monstrous salmon, the fillets Rossini, the sole pies, the pheasant galantines, the carps à la Chambord, the lobsters à l’Américaine, the scarlet bushes of crayfish, the giant shrimp from the African coast and the monstrous fruit from the Asiatic islands excited the curiosity and desire of passers-by. He could not help laughing bitterly. “Once,” he muttered, “I drank absinthe; now I dine with Lucullus.”
But all those dishes, once familiar, did not occasion any regret; he would have been content with the most vulgar dishes.
What would become of him? A vague glimmer of hope was born in his mind. What if he could find the alcoholic beggar and borrow two sous from him? He was the only being to whom he could address himself. He knew that he operated in the cafés of the left bank and he headed painfully in that direction.
As he passed over the Pont des Arts, during one of the numerous pauses that his weakness necessitated, he leaned on the balustrade.
The sun was setting in a luminous mist behind the Palais de l’Industrie. He gazed sat the Seine, whose waves, turned crimson by the last light were lapping the quais. How many times, on emerging from the Institut, he had admired that spectacle! Now, as he contemplated the water that seemed to fascinate him and promise eternal repose, he wondered if that bloody silk was not about to be the shroud that bore his cadaver, with the debris of the sewers, to the sea.
The sea! He would not even have the vast and poetic tomb of the desperate! A mariner’s hook would bring his tumefied body back to the surface; he would go to the Morgue to serve as pasture for the unhealthy curiosity of idlers. Then the quicklime of the communal grave would devour his bones.
By an energetic effort of will, the man drew himself up to his full height. No, he would not seek Death. Let hunger continue its slow and sure work, and let it kill him. But he would struggle until the last minute, until the last breath. Had he voluntarily abandoned so much glory, so much wealth and so many honors, had he conquered a second life at the price of so many dangers for an obscure suicide to undo it a few months later?
That could not be; it would not be. He, who had once stimulated the enthusiasm and admiration of an elite crowd, was incapable of finding, today, a poor crust of bread? That was absurd, impossible. A thick veil covered his eyes, and the lid of a tomb weighed heavily upon his intelligence, but he would lift up the slab, tear through the darkness and tame Fate. Avoid the struggle by flight, like a coward, dive head first into Oblivion like the hero of some trivial news item? Get away! He would look the enemy in the face, and no matter how cruel his wounds might be, no matter how powerful the iron hand that had gripped his through and tried to strangle him, he would fight to the end. He had gambled with death, he had snatched from Destiny the few years that Dr. Albin still had to live, and he would confess himself vanquished already? Rather shame, rather theft, rather blood, rather...
The blasphemy caught in his throat.
On the arm of Dr. Larmezan and under the crepe that seemed to tear for him, so beautiful, so blooming, so languorously happy, such as he had never seen her and never suspected, a woman in full mourning, the widow of Professor Albin, passed slowly in front of him.
Chapter XI
As if to mock him for having made the energetic resolution to live, hunger—inexorable hunger—was devouring his entrails. How he regretted the two sous that a sentimental impulse had made him give away three days ago, how he regretted above all the obol that his pride had caused him to refuse. Now, there was no longer any stupid self-respect; as soon as night fell, he would beg. Yes, since he must, since he wanted to live, the man who had been Dr. Albin would beg.
His vanity would have adapted better to theft, but the most vulgar common sense, the immediate and future interest, the lack of know-how, all prevented him, so he had to fall back on that hideous necessity; he would beg. He had never refused alms to anyone, why should someone not render him a little of the charity that he had once lavished?
In the meantime, he sat down on a bench, facing a town house whose basement allowed irritating odors of cooking to escape. The darkness thickened, the mascarons grimacing menacingly above the arches. He got up and went to lurk in a corner near the coaching entrance, but the concierge came out, irritated.
“What are you doing there? You’ve come here to beg, or rather to spy on the house. Wait a minute—I’ll fetch the police.”
The unfortunate drew away, went down on to the quais, hid behind a tree and advanced toward a hurried passer-by, who made an abrupt sidestep and continued on his way, cursing the untimely apparition.
On the Pont des Saints-Pères he approaches two gentlemen in the midst of a heated argument under a gas-lamp.
“Charity, Messieurs, please!” But his dull voice his curt, his gaze anxious and piercing; the two men examine him suspiciously.
“Is that an order?” exclaims one of them. “Your money or your life! You think we’re in a corner of the woods? Get away, quicker than that, or I’ll bring out my revolver.”
“Must be a communist,” adds the other. “He asks for alms as if he were demanding his due.”
The disconcerted beggar goes for some time without daring to renew the attempt. In the Avenue de l’Opéra, a woman of a certain age is trotting before him; he hastens his pace and approaches her; the respectable lady turns round indignantly.
“You’re mistaken, Monsieur!” she cries, in an English accent. “I’m an honest woman, and if you persist in following me I’ll call for help.”
A young man in a black suit comes out of the Café de Paris; he hurries to meet him, sticks out his hand and stammers...
A “no money, my good man,” immediately closes his mouth.
On the great boulevards, he immediately perceives that the too-compact crowd renders begging almost impossible. Passers-by solicited at too close a range recoil, muttering, the idlers huddle together. Monsieur Vautour is astonished that the police do their job so badly; Monsieur Rapace blames the ever-increasing audacity and cynicism of the false poor; Monsieur Prud’homme advises him to work and Monsieur Homais sends him to the bureaux of charity.
In the Place de l’Opéra, a
street-vendor is offering all-comers transparent maps.
“Do I look like a provincial?” cries an obese stroller in a vexed tone.
“No, Boss,” the lout replies, in his hoarse voice, “I can see that you haven’t arrived from Quimper, but I’ve been fleeced at the course; give me two sous—it’s to buy groundsel for my little canary!”
The simpleton laughs and complies with a good grace; the tempted vagabond extends his hand in his turn.
“Oh, no!” exclaims the gentleman. “Come back tomorrow, the till closes at three! Word of honor, they take me for their banker.”
He wanders in the direction of the Madeleine, sketches a suppliant expression and implores an old beau about to cross the Rue Royale.
“Have pity on me, Monsieur, I haven’t eaten!”
The man looks him up and down, mockingly. “It’s bit too old, that one, old man; you’ve been telling me that for years!”
Twenty times he recommences his attempts, and the same fatality remains obstinate in making them fail. Perhaps he will have the opportunity to open a few coach doors when the theaters empty?
Midnight chimes. He retraces his steps hastily; a flood of spectators emerges from the Vaudeville; carriages and fiacres advance in a file; he wants to try to open them, but a swarm of street-urchins and prowlers, more alert and more skillful, take possession of them before him, jostling him brutally, warning him that this carriage is theirs, that they’ve sought it out, and shoving him backwards. He remembers the poor devil that he once saw showered with blows, and retires, discouraged.
Gradually, the crowd ebbs away, passers-by become increasingly rare, the terraces of the cafes empty, no one any longer remains on the boulevards but night-walkers, prostitutes and pimps.. The street-vendors and newsvendors, reckoning the day ended, gather in groups, counting their receipts, calling out to the whores, heading for the taverns that are still open. The animation is concentrated at the corner of the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. There he makes a few final attempts, as fruitless as the preceding ones. Policemen harass him, abuse him, order him to desist from begging and threaten to arrest him if they see him on the boulevard again.
The Second Life of Doctor Albin Page 11